Twenty Palaces: A Prequel

by Harry Connolly

  Callin was still breathing. I stood over him, thinking I should feel triumphant, but instead I was just impatient. He didn't look so tough--had never looked tough--and it annoyed me that he'd made it so hard to get what I needed.

  I knelt beside him. His face was pale but otherwise unmarked and his waistcoat had been reduced to scorched threads. There was an untouched sigil on his belt, but I left it alone. I didn't want to kill the guy, I just wanted answers.

  I moved his tattered clothes away from his chest and belly. He didn't have a mark on him, not from Irena's harpoons, not even from the gigantic blow torch that had cut through him. What the hell were these people made of, anyway?

  Personally, I was ready to start the interrogation, or at least carry him out of here, but Annalise was digging through Irena's bag again. Did she need more chains?

  She made a small grunt that suggested she'd found what she was looking for, then took a small clear Tupperware tub from the bag. It was filled with sloshing red liquid and small dark chunks.

  Annalise turned to Irena, who stirred, slowing coming back to consciousness. Annalise cradled the older woman's head in her lap, popped the Tupperware lid and slipped a tiny chunk of raw, bloody meat between Irena's lips.

  "Slowly," Annalise said. Her voice was gentle. "Take it easy."

  I shut my eyes. It was beef--steak tartar. It was raw tuna or pork or dog or something, anything other than human flesh. It had to be. I didn't want to think about what it would mean if these people were cannibals, too.

  But I had to know. "What are you feeding her?" Annalise ignored me. I was only a wooden man, whatever that meant, but I had to have an answer. "Okay, then. Who are you feeding her?"

  Annalise glared at me with contempt, then returned to her friend. I took a deep breath. She wouldn't have looked at me with such scorn if she was really feeding human flesh to her friend. I hoped.

  The pounding continued. Several people worked at the door now and from the sound of it, they were becoming desperate. Which was too bad for them. I had something important to do.

  Callin's eyes were open. "Raymond," he said, as casually as if we were old buddies who'd bumped into each other at a coffee shop. "A ghost knife, eh?"

  I didn't answer. Annalise had said her society killed people who stole spells, and I have never been the kind of guy who felt better after a confession.

  "On a piece of paper," Callin continued, and shook his head. He looked tired. The fight had gone out of him, just as it had gone out of Jon when I'd used the ghost knife on him. "The spell's name is 'ghost knife,' so naturally I laid it on knives and the occasional saber. Quite effective, as I'm sure you can imagine. Such things are out of fashion now--and they make travel difficult--so I dropped that spell from my arsenal years ago. But putting it on a piece of paper... I should have thought of that myself."

  The pounding from the other room had gotten heavier and more insistent. But that didn't matter. "We aren't going to have a friendly conversation," I told him. "Where's the book?"

  "Is that why you came here? To steal my book? Again?"

  Annalise walked across the shattered floor toward us. "Cut the bullshit. I want to see it. Where have you hidden it?"

  Callin glanced at his desk. It was the barest flicker of his eyes, but I didn't miss the significance.

  "There?" I asked, pointing. "In that desk?"

  Without waiting for clarification, Annalise brought her forearm down on it, shattering it.

  Callin groaned. "That was a Wooton."

  Annalise shifted the wood aside and drew out a heavy book. She carried it to Irena, who had found the strength to sit up. Looking more alert than she had before she'd eaten, she wiped her hands on her coat and accepted the book from Annalise. Whatever had been wrong with her, eating meat had healed her.

  "Are you certain?" Callin said, softly. "This attack could be forgiven. It could be brushed off as bad intelligence or enemy duplicity. There would be consequences, yes, but they'd be manageable. But if you take my spell book--"

  Irena opened the book. She barely glanced at each page before flipping to the next. She didn't even seem to focus on the page. "Annalise, how can she--"

  Annalise glared at me. "Shut up."

  Irena reached the end of the book. "Nothing," she said.

  "No," I said, the conviction in my voice surprising me. "No, you didn't look carefully enough."

  Irena held the book close to her chest. "There are no summoning spells in this book."

  "That can't be right!" I turned to Callin. "Where's the spell you cast on Jon? I know it was you. I saw the blue page. How do I undo what happened to my friend?"

  Annalise shook her head. "Shit."

  The pounding at the door stopped.

  I turned back to Irena. "It must be a different book! He must have switched them." But I could see where I'd sliced the cover, and I could see the metal plate beneath. "Then he must have a second book around here somewhere." Which didn't make any sense, but I was getting desperate. I stood over Callin. "Listen, you son of a bitch, I know what you did to my friend, and I want you to show me how to undo it. Tell me where that spell is, or--"

  Callin laughed. "Please. You wouldn't know how to kill someone like me."

  "Boss." I turned to Annalise. I knew I was losing them and I absolutely had to bring her around to my side again. "I showed you the blue page the summoning spell was on. The only place it could have come from was his book."

  "Shut up," she said to me. "There's something else that doesn't make sense, Callin: If you haven't gone renegade, why did you try to kill me with that damn envelope?"

  "Envelope?" Callin asked, genuinely surprised. "Are you referring to the envelope I gave to him?"

  Annalise, Irena and Callin all turned toward me.

  I had gambled and lost; I'd failed to save Jon. I would have liked to apologize to him for it, but I wasn't going to get the chance.

  Something crashed in the other room. We all turned toward the doorway just as Jon charged screaming through the doorway, an aluminum baseball bat over his head.

  Echo, Payton and Macy were right behind him.

  Jon crossed the room faster than I could blink. Annalise didn't even have time to raise her arm before Jon began bashing her with it. She fell onto her side just as Payton brought a sledgehammer down onto Irena.

  Then with the suddenness of a bad dream, Echo was right in front of me, grinning like a lunatic. She lifted a hatchet and, with terrifying speed, swung for my neck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hot pain flared beneath my jaw. Just as I was thinking that she'd cut my head off, I saw her hand rebound away from my neck. The hatchet hadn't cut through.

  Echo was startled. She seized a handful of my shirt, making ready for a second swing, and I grabbed her wrist so I could hold onto her long enough to use my ghost knife. The spell on Irena's glove caught hold of her, and Echo changed.

  Like a picture coming into focus, ghostly shapes appeared around Echo's face, protruding from her mouth, nose, tear ducts, skin, hair. They were like branches, or stick lightning--slender and thinner than pencils, but splitting apart in irregular angles and ending in needle-sharp tips. They shivered as though under the force of a hurricane, and at the same moment Echo threw back her head and screamed. Her knees buckled, but she still had hold of my shirt. I slashed through her wrist with the ghost knife and it passed through her as if she were made of smoke.

  Her hand spasmed and she lost her grip on me. I released her and let her fall to the floor at the same moment I remembered Annalise's voice: Predators like to be summoned, but hate to be held in place. The ghostly branches vanished as soon as I released her.

  Callin moved toward me. Macy stood beside him, an axe high over her head, but she didn't swing it. A glance at her expression told me that she would never swing it.

  I had no choice but to take on Callin again, but alone this time. I stabbed at him with my ghost knife and he leaned back, sweeping both of his arms upward
. The chain around his wrists struck the ghost knife and a burst of light filled the room. The links of the shackle flew apart.

  Broken links of chain pelted my face and chest. Macy tossed aside the axe. The phantom shapes around Echo's face faded. She looked at me; she wasn't grinning anymore.

  Callin's spell book leaped into his hand as he stepped toward the broken edge of the balcony. At the same time, Echo rolled cautiously to her feet, hatchet in hand. At the other end of the room, Jon and Payton were unleashing a furious attack against Annalise and Irena, their blows coming as fast as a drum beat.

  Without thinking, I leaped at Callin and caught hold of his torn pant cuff.

  He leaped upwards, dragging me along with him. Cloth tore, but before his cuff could tear free, the world disappeared.

  For a moment, I was alone in a silent white mist. There was no city below me, no sky above. I could smell icy wind and I held tight to that tiny piece of cloth.

  The sound of city traffic washed the silence away and I felt myself falling. Before I had a chance to register that I was back in the world, I slammed down hard onto a flat surface. More tar paper and pebbles: Another roof. It was daytime, but still overcast. Was this the same day? Was I still in Seattle?

  "Damned sunlight," Callin said from somewhere close. I rolled over and tried to scramble away, but Callin grabbed my arm and leg. I felt himself being lifted into the air.

  "Time to tie a knot in you, my little loose end," Callin said. He marched toward the edge of the roof and I knew he was going to try to throw me off again.

  Where was my ghost knife? It wasn't in my hand anymore and I couldn't reach my pocket to check. Had I lost it during the trip? I struggled, but I knew it was no use against someone as strong as Callin. I was panicking; I couldn't calm himself enough to feel for my spell.

  Of course Callin had the strength to throw me off the roof from right where he was standing, but I guessed he wanted to see me hit the pavement. That thought did nothing to calm me down or help me focus. We passed close to the roof access door but not close enough for me to grab it with Annalise's glove.

  Then we were at the edge of the building. "Goodbye, lively one." Callin leaned over the edge and threw me downward just as I grabbed hold of his hair.

  Irena's glove held fast to it. For a moment I thought I wasn't going to go over the edge, but then the hair tore free of Callin's scalp with a nasty sound, and I fell over the edge of the building.

  I slapped my palm on the stone face and my body slapped against the side of the building. I'd only fallen about five feet, and Callin was a flailing above me, holding his scalp and cursing like a madman. That couldn't be good.

  He moved away from the edge of the building, and somehow I suspected that he wasn't heading off to take a relaxing hot shower. I looked down. Maybe if I let go of the wall and dropped a few feet at a time, I could do a controlled fall to the street without breaking any bones.

  Above me, I heard the sound of tearing metal. Maybe I could reach a window instead....

  Callin appeared at the edge of the roof holding the twisted roof access door. His eyes were wild with anger. He raised the door over his head to throw it and roared.

  I was exposed and helpless and I had nowhere to go. That metal door was going to hit, and maybe the force of it would tear my arms off, leaving my hands stuck to the wall while my body splatted on the alley below.

  But Callin didn't throw it. While my mind was racing, he took a deep breath, blew it out, and laughed. Then he tossed the door aside. "You are a most irritating boy!"

  A smarter man would have said yes, sir but what came out of my mouth was "I think I'm an irritating man."

  "This anger is invigorating. It's quite a gift for someone who has lived as long as I have."

  "Happy belated," I said. "Glad it fits. Give me the cure for my friends and we'll be even."

  He smiled at me in a way I didn't like. Then the world became a white blur.

  Silence.

  And the world returned and I found myself sprawled on the gravel roof with Callin standing above me.

  "Lively one, I think you know by now that I don't have the cure or the curse."

  "But there's no one else who--"

  "You have no idea how much trouble you are in, do you? Did you make a copy of my book?"

  That question took me by surprise, and I didn't call up my poker face fast enough. He shook his head and sighed.

  For a moment I thought he was going to kill me. "Annalise destroyed them without reading them," I said, for no apparent reason at all. Were those going to be my last words, to help a killer get clear of the trouble I'd caused her?

  "She wouldn't," Callin said. He squinted up at the sunlight. My skull stayed refreshingly un-smashed.

  I saw the ghost knife lying on the gravel roof, about ten feet behind Callin. I wanted it, desperately, but that was only because I was afraid. I hate to be afraid. Besides, if I took up my ghost knife again, Callin might think the fight had started up again.

  But I still wanted him to go away. "Are you going to go back there?" I asked. "Are you going to try to help her?"

  "I am not. My first duty is to hide my spell book away so it does not fall into the hands of your infected friends. Protecting my book is a responsibility I have been neglecting lately. I have been sleepwalking through my life, I admit. Irena and Annalise will have to fend for themselves. They're somewhat capable.

  "And now that you have destroyed my resting place," Callin continued, "I'm leaving the city. All this leaves me far too exposed. But I'm going to send someone to come and clean up this mess. Someone with real power and the will to use it."

  "If you're going to send someone, send someone who can help, not just someone who wants to kill my friends because it's easy."

  Callin crouched beside me. "My dear boy, your infected friends could do more harm than you can dream. We peers would destroy this entire city--and every innocent person in it, down to babes in arms--before we would let their infection spread. I'm sending someone with the wit and power to do just that."

  "But if your friend is that powerful, why can't he just take off their curse?"

  Callin laughed at me again. "You have no idea how much danger you are in, but not from me. I'm not going to kill you. In fact, I'm fighting a powerful urge to apologize to you and to offer you a large sum of money as compensation for all the trouble I've caused while fighting for my life. I'm sure you know what I am talking about. Besides, you are Annalise's wooden man, now, yes? You don't need me to kill you."

  The world became a blur of silent white. When I opened my eyes again, Callin was gone.

  The first thing I did was fetch my ghost knife. It felt damn good to hold it again, and I was happy that we had both come through the fight with a minimum of damage. Happy? It was a goddamn miracle.

  A few hundred yards to the north, I could see a gaping hole in the side of Callin's hotel. I touched the side of my throat and my fingers came away spotted with blood. The spell Annalise had put there had blocked most of Echo's hatchet swing.

  My hands started to shake, and I crouched low, moving toward the shadow of the roof access stairs. What if someone was looking out of that ruined hotel room and saw me?

  I'd come through that fight with nothing more than a few bone-deep bruises and a set of fear-shakes so bad it made me sick. That was the power I'd hungered for. I'd stuck my neck out for my friend--and, if I was going to be honest, for a taste of the magic Annalise and Callin tossed around so casually--but not only had I failed Jon, I'd failed myself.

  God, the fight in Callin's room was the most terrifying experience of my life. I was almost certainly going to be killed in the near future by someone in that room, and, despite everything, I still hungered for more magic.

  This was a poison. It was like an addiction. I rubbed at the numb, enchanted flesh on the back of my hand. I had made myself part of the world behind the world, and I hadn't been invited in. I'd lied and tricked my way in. I'd s
tolen the key, and I had no idea how I was going to survive it.

  I was alone now. I no longer had Annalise on my side, and Echo had tried to kill me a second time, despite the fact that Jon had told her I was off limits.

  Were the six of them still fighting over there, inside that darkened room? Ordinarily, I'd have put my money on Annalise and Irena, but Callin had done a lot of damage to both of them.

  The truth was, I didn't know who would be coming out on top, but I did know both sides were my enemies now. If I was still going to find a cure for Jon--and I was, nothing could change that--I'd have to do it without help.

  But where was I going to find a way to undo the curse Jon had put on himself and his friends? I'd been so sure it had come from Callin, once I'd seen that Jon's spell had been copied onto blue legal paper. Where else could he have gotten that if he hadn't pulled it out of the stack of Callin's spells in my own backpack?

  Suddenly, everything became clear. I ducked into the roof access stairway, avoiding the jagged edges of the metal hinges where Callin had torn the door off, then hustled down the stairs, heading for the street.

  I knew exactly where the spell had come from.

  #

  I didn't have any bills small enough for bus fare, so I ducked into the nearest Starbucks. They had only just opened, and I pressed one of their light brown napkins against my neck while I waited in line to break a twenty by buying a cup of coffee.

  "Did they get your wallet?"

  I turned to the woman who'd spoken to me. She was about sixty and must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Her clothes suggested that she worked somewhere formal, like a bank or lawyer's office.

  "Worse," I said. "My phone."

  She took a smart phone from her pocket. "Do you need to call someone?"

  "You know what? Thank you. But what I really need is to look up an address."

  Ten minutes later, I was riding a bus out to West Seattle, with an address on napkin in my pocket. I had nothing in particular to think about and my mind was clear.

  Forty-five minutes later I was standing at the door of an apartment building. I scanned the directory and pressed the call button.